


Genius

by Kipler (Fillyjonk)



Category: X-Files - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:04:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4707005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fillyjonk/pseuds/Kipler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of a young girl who disappears and returns smarter than she was before.</p><p>Written and originally posted in the summer of 1995.  Posted to AO3 on the 20th anniversary!  That's kind of cool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the odd and pleasing resurgence of interest in my X-Files fanfic, y'all. Thats very cool.

It was full summer. Scully had been indoors so much lately that she had hardly noticed the heat wave. But now, after the tarmac at the airport and the intolerable wait for Mulder to pick her up, she thought she would suffocate in this stifling air. She wished she had watched the weather more closely. How many more days was it supposed to stay like this? Maybe it was this heat that was making her feel so on edge.

No, not the heat. The implications of this case.

Scully glanced over at the "Ice Cream Cone," a roadside snack bar built in exactly that shape. Was it written into the building code around here, that you had to build your food stand in the appropriate shape? So far they'd passed the the "Clam Box," with four hinged roof flaps that actually folded open, and the "Moo-la Dairy," a giant milk bottle. There must be a word for this - the architectural equivalent of onomatopoeia.

Mulder waved at her from the front of the line, holding up two large styrofoam cups in victory. She smiled. For all the times that they had come through Boston on cases, Scully still sometimes forgot that Mulder was a near-native. She had to ask him again.

"Tell me one more time, Mulder," she said as he approached. "What is the difference between a frappe and a regular milkshake?"

"You're hopeless, Scully," he sighed. "Frappes - ice cream. Milkshakes - milk. Got it?"

Scully slid into the car. It was an oven; her skin baked against the dark upholstery. Mulder crammed his legs into the driver's side, handing her his cup while he started the car.

"It tastes like a shake to me," she said, skeptically. Mulder shook his head sadly.

With the air conditioner on, it was easy to forget the sweltering heat outside. They left the strange little buildings behind as Mulder drove west, zigzagging from one highway to another. Scully looked over the map. The town names here had been chosen by the British settlers - Lexington, Boxborough, Harvard, Chelmsford - but many of the rivers and lakes must have been named much earlier, by others: Assabet, Nashoba, Quaboag, Naukeag.

At last, the car turned onto a small two-lane, Route 140. Scully enjoyed the sudden shade. Trees leaned over the road like hunched giants, meeting over the roof of the car in a great canopy. Underbrush formed a wall on either side of them, pushing out, seeking light, kept in check only by the daily trimming of passing cars. Shadows engulfed them, in dozens of greens, deep and cool. People must have to work hard, strike out against the growing every day, to keep their labors from being swallowed up by the trees and the green.

To their right branched a long gravel driveway bearing a brown sign with white lettering: "Contusett State Forest." And, in smaller letters, "No Littering. Keep Dogs on a Leash. No Hunting or Fishing." They drove a little further.

"Here we are," said Mulder, pointing ahead. Nestled among the green hid another sign.

RESERVOIR HOTEL. VACANCY.

"I don't know about this, Mulder," Scully mused. "Do you think it's smart to stay here? Right where the girl lives? In the hotel owned by her grandfather?"

"There's no sign of foul play, Scully," Mulder countered. "The police reports make that clear. No sign that any person is responsible for the disappearances of the girl. Besides, the grandfather is the one who called us. Why would he invite the FBI if he had anything to hide?"

A wide gravel driveway curved up through a tunnel of trees. The hotel looked dated, but the grounds were well-maintained. Near the entrance, a large flower bed sat dripping with impatiens and snapdragons. They were shaded by a great whitewashed front porch. Scully could see a man and a woman lounging there, sunglasses on. Over on the side lawn, an ancient maple tree cast its shade on several picnic tables and another flower bed.

Scully entered the lobby and gave a little sigh. It was not the most tastefully decorated of the places they'd stayed. Scattered about the common area were vinyl chairs in a violent green, and on the floor lay a matted square of grey indoor-outdoor carpeting. Along one wall hung oil paintings of trees and rivers; a second was covered with dozens of family photos. In the far corner, behind the reservations desk and looking out of place, sat a digital piano, piled high with music books. Above the keys glowed several tiny red lights. Someone had been playing recently.

A grey-haired woman, thin and smaller than Scully, stepped out of the back room.

"May I help you?" she asked.

Her voice, her movements, made Scully think of a bird.

"Yes, I'm Agent Scully. My partner, Agent Mulder, is here? We've come up to investigate..."

"Of course. I'm Jack's wife, Angie Thomas. Sarah's grandmother." The woman smiled openly, holding out her hand in greeting. "We're glad you came. Jack's been so worried about Sarah. And he didn't think anyone would believe his story - especially the FBI. Bill Barnes, the police chief, said you'd come. I guess he was right."

Scully smiled back at the woman.

"Well," she said, "My partner holds a certain expertise in...strange cases. We look forward to helping you. Right now I could really use a shower. It's like an oven out there."

"Of course," the woman said kindly. "Would you like a room next to Agent Mulder's?"

"Yes," Scully confirmed, "if possible."

Scully met Mulder outside the front door. Her carry-on bag was slung over his shoulder, and her suitcase stood at his feet. He touched her lightly on the shoulder and pointed. Her eyes followed the line of his arm.

By the far wall of the hotel was a sloping field of grass and wildflowers that fell away into the woods. Standing at the edge of the field, blinking into the sun, stood a girl - the girl - Sarah. Facing her, but head and shoulders taller, was a lanky boy with wild red hair. He was excited, gesticulating with his hands as he spoke to the girl. Just then, a man stepped out from a storage shed, calling Sarah's name. She seemed to jump. The tall boy gave Sarah a long look, then darted off with the easy, graceful strides of a runner. He slipped into the shade of the woods. The man marched off behind the hotel. Sarah darted to the man and sidled up to him, carefully matching her steps to his.

Mulder looked off in the direction of the boy, then at Scully, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Wait until you meet her," he urged. "She's fascinating."

Scully started to speak, but thought better of it. She picked up her suitcase and began to waddle off, but Mulder caught her arm again.

"Thanks for coming, Scully," he said. "You know, I tried to reach you yesterday, before I decided to come up here."

"I know," Scully said. "Now, just give me some time to get up-to-date."

"Mmm."

Scully walked, hair dripping, to the window, and flipped the switch of the air conditioner. Silence. She tried again, and sighed. Wonderful. One window, no cross ventilation, and a broken AC unit. She toweled her hair off as best she could, and made an attempt at blow-drying it. Useless. She only succeeded in making her body hot and sticky once again. Oh, well. There was one consolation. The Thomases did not look like formal people. Forget the panty hose and pumps. She pulled on a pair of cotton walking shorts and a t-shirt.

She spread the files on one of the beds and sat down, scanning the breadth of the records: psychological batteries, IQ tests, school records, medical work-ups. The photographs caught Scully's eye. She lined them up carefully. The chronology of a child's entire life lay before her. The pictures showed an adorable baby, a chubby toddler, a first-grader going off to school with a tentative smile. But then there was a gap in the continuum. And in the newer photos, the liquid eyes of innocence were gone. An eleven-year-old shouldn't have eyes like these. As if they were sealed off from the world by a wall.

The last picture must be the most recent. It showed a leggy girl in shorts and a tank top, wavy brown hair parted in the middle and falling down her back in braids.

Scully knew that Mulder had seen the resemblance; even she couldn't help but notice it. And she was sure that was why Mulder had come here so suddenly, without waiting for her to get back.

He hadn't called to ask her to come. He wouldn't do that, on a case like this. He had only phoned to tell her where he was, what he was doing. He was very careful what he asked her to do, these days. But he had just as carefully left the faxed copies of the Sarah Thomas files on her desk. As if she would stay in D.C., after reading these records - after looking at this picture and seeing how much the girl looked like Samantha. Well, she should know better than to leave Mulder alone in the office, where he might stumble onto something like this.

She looked back at the picture and sighed, wishing that she could go the rest of her career, that Mulder could, without ever handling another case involving a child.

She flipped through the files, memorizing details that she had only scanned on the flight up. Sarah Thomas. Eleven years old. Unremarkable childhood until approximately one year ago. During the past summer, and beginning again this May, the girl had undergone numerous unexplained disappearances. Initially the police had written Sarah off as a chronic runaway - except that she never left the area. And each time she disappeared, she had been found in the forest near her home, disoriented but seemingly unharmed. With no memory of her whereabouts during the time she was missing, and no sense of the passage of time. Mulder had highlighted that line:

"Time disappeared."

That would have been enough to get Mulder up here; it would even have been enough to get Scully up here, now. But there was more. The following paragraph was entirely highlighted:

"Since the initial disappearance of Sarah Thomas, family, friends and school personnel have noted a marked change in her personality. IQ tests administered in first grade showed her to be a child of average intelligence. Tests administered in the summer after her fourth grade year indicate that her IQ is now in the extremely gifted range: 155 to 160, perhaps higher. She has begun to exhibit verbal skills well beyond her years, as well as remarkable aptitudes in mathematics, music and art. This increase in skills is noticeable to all who work with Sarah, and is, at present, unexplained."

There was one more highlighted section, a quote from the interview with Jack Thomas, Sarah's grandfather:

"Someone is doing something to Sarah. Someone is changing her."

Well, whatever it was, it had spooked the Kingston Police Chief enough to get him to refer the Sarah Thomas case to the FBI.

Scullly knocked on Mulder's door. No answer. He must still be in the shower. The heat must be worse for him; Scully wondered how men could wear suits and ties in weather like this.

Angie Thomas, the grandmother, was sitting out on the front porch of the hotel.

"Mind if I join you?" Scully asked.

"No, by all means," Angie answered.

"Where are Sarah and your husband?" Scully said casually.

"Oh, they're off puttering somewhere. Fixing something. There's always something to do around here. Jack got four daughters and tried to turn them all into handymen. Didn't take. Sarah is his one last hope." The woman laughed quietly.

"If you don't mind my asking," Scully nudged, "where are Sarah's parents?"

The woman stared ahead. When she finally answered, her speech was rote; it was clear that she had spoken these same words many times before.

"Sarah's mother is our Mary. Our second daughter. Jack's pride and joy. But she got...wild...when she was a teenager. Ran away a couple times during high school. She was heavily involved in drugs." The woman closed her eyes briefly before continuing.

"No parent should have to live through that. She would come home late at night, out of her mind, screaming things that... delusions... hallucinations. Horrible things."

"Well, Mary got pregnant when she was twenty and moved back here. And having the baby and all...well, she seemed to straighten out. She lived with us until Sarah was six. Then she met a man, Scott Farmer. He was wonderful. He loved Sarah, seemed to treat Mary well. She married him and went to California. And then she fell apart again. I guess drugs get a hold on some people. Scott couldn't take that mess, and Mary wouldn't let him take Sarah. So Scott was left on his own, and Sarah was sent back here. And we haven't heard from Mary in almost two years."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Thomas," Scully said.

There was a long silence.

"Mrs. Thomas," said Scully, at last, "Has Sarah ever shown any unusual behaviors that aren't in her medical records? Anything that might lead to the memory lapses? Sleepwalking? Anything..."

"No," said the older woman. "After the first two disappearances, we took her into Boston to have her tested. We thought she might have epilepsy. She must have seen a dozen doctors - neurologists, oncologists. Even psychologists. We thought the trouble with her mother might have... But there was nothing. She got a clean bill of health. Even the psychologist said...what did she say?... something about how, for a genius, Sarah was remarkably well adjusted. And that's the first time we knew she was different."

"And she's never run away?" Scully asked gently.

"No, no..." the grandmother said. "She's a homebody. She worships Jack. Sarah swears she would never run away. And when she turns up missing, it happens in such strange ways - she'll be outside there, and then she'll be gone. Just like that. Once, Sarah was riding her bike with a friend, and when the friend turned around, Sarah wasn't there. She was gone."

Several minutes passed in silence. Then, from behind the screen door, piano music began to drift across the porch. Strange, eerie music. It drummed and rolled past Scully's ears.

"That's Sarah," said Angie Thomas. "She doesn't like the guests to hear her. She wears headphones. But I've got that electric piano plugged into my speaker."

"What piece is that?" Scully asked.

"Oh, nothing special," smiled the older woman. "She's playing from her head right now. Sometimes she goes on for hours and hours. Up and down, adding notes in, then taking them out, changing it."

Scully blinked. She had never heard music like this before. It pulsed like a heartbeat behind the noises of the summer. Eleven years old.

"Where do you think it comes from?" she breathed.

"The music? Oh, the same place as the art...and the high school math. It happened to her when she got lost in those woods the first time."

"What do you think happened in the woods?" Scully asked.

"Well," the woman laughed, "Some people say those woods are haunted. Early settlers who died of smallpox or some such story. But I never could see why dead settlers would want to make my granddaughter a genius. I believe..."

Scully tilted her head, willing the woman to finish.

"Now, I know this isn't a popular theory these days. Especially to scientists. And I know you're a doctor. But I believe that Sarah has been touched by God."

The woman looked up.

"And here comes your friend."

Mulder emerged at last from his hotel room. His wet hair stood on end. He had forsaken his suit and tie in favor of jeans and a t-shirt. Well. There went the last vestige of formality on this trip. Heat and humidity had won out.

"Walk, Scully?" he invited.

"In this heat?"

"I thought we might take Sarah with us," Mulder explained. "She may feel more comfortable talking on a walk than holed up in a room with us and a tape recorder. If that's OK with you, Mrs. Thomas."

"It's fine with me. And then when you get back, you can have dinner with us."

"Ahhh, free food..." sighed Mulder. "Skinner is going to love the expense account vouchers for this trip."

"Check the back lawn for Sarah," said Angie Thomas. "I think they're fixing a picnic table."

The girl was a fast and powerful walker, moving easily on long, coltlike legs. Mulder had no trouble keeping up, but Scully found herself falling behind every few minutes. She watched the girl's soft brown braids flip back and forth as she paced along. They walked in silence, following a wide path that had been cut through the woods. The sun slanted in, casting long shadows across the path, leaving dappled puddles of light on the forest floor. The stifling air around Scully was thick and alive - with the humming and darting of insects, with the scent of a thousand blossoming plants, hidden in the shadows. For a moment Scully had the sensation that they had been swallowed up by the life around them.

They passed a small stream, sluggish and green with algae. Sarah stopped and poked at it with a stick. She stirred the water vigorously, then pulled out the twig. It was coated with green.

"Did you ever hear about Chlamydomonas and Volvox?" Sarah asked.

"Why don't you tell us?" Mulder said, his words fringed with laughter.

"They're both types of algae," the girl said, matter-of-factly. "Chlamydomonas is a single-celled algae. Volvox is multi-cellular. But it seems as though the only difference between them is how they're arranged. It's as if the cells know, once they're put together, how to act as one big organism. They work together. They maintain their shape, and become almost specialized. But no one knows what keeps them from turning from a single living thing back into a pile of unrelated cells."

Scully looked at Mulder. He shrugged and mouthed the words, "I told you."

"Sometimes," Sarah continued, earnestly, "I think about us. Like a pre-embryo. It's got a few cells, all exactly the same. But later on, each one knows what it's supposed to become - an arm, or a stomach or a brain. How do they know? How do they keep from being just a pile of cells?"

They walked for a few more minutes, their silence broken only by the buzzing of mosquitoes and the swatting and slapping of humans. Then the girl spoke again.

"I know you're here to find out what happens to me in the woods. And I don't mind. I've already told my story before - to Chief Barnes. Over and over."

"Would you tell it again, for us?" Mulder inquired.

"All I can tell you is how it feels afterward. I never remember anything except finding myself in the woods. The first time it happened, I thought I was having a dream, but now I just remind myself that I'm not dreaming, and tell myself to sit down and wait until they find me."

"Is it like waking up from a dream?" Scully asked.

"No... it's not like that. My body can't feel any time passing. When you sleep, after you wake up, you can usually guess how long you've slept. I tried it once, for a couple of weeks. You can get pretty accurate at predicting the time, even before you look at the clock. Even if you've been dreaming. But I can't do that when I'm in the woods. Once I was gone for nineteen hours, and when they found me, it was as if the time had never happened. A whole day had disappeared from my life."

Scully shook her head slightly, suddenly uncomfortable. Sarah looked up at her. The eyes were wary, kept their distance.

"Do you believe me?" she implored, at once a frightened child seeking approval.

"Yes, Sarah, we believe you." Mulder assured her firmly.

"There was one time that I almost remember something. Everyone says it was a dream, but I know it wasn't."

"What, Sarah?" Mulder pumped. "What do you remember?"

"The last time I was gone, I almost remember voices. No, not voices. Messages. Very old messages..."

Mulder's eyes caught Scully's for a brief moment. The girl went on.

"...They weren't words - they were thoughts. They were flying around in my head, but then when it was over it was just like the other times. I couldn't tell how much time had passed, and the messages were gone, and all I had left was a feeling."

"Feeling?" Mulder asked.

"A feeling that I should know something. Only I couldn't remember what it was. And then, the next day, I was in my room with my paint set. I started painting all over the wall, and I couldn't stop until I had filled up the whole wall." The girl's voice shook with emotion. Whatever she was remembering was frightening her.

"Could we see the painting later, Sarah?" Mulder asked.

The girl nodded silently, staring at the ground. Scully shifted the conversation to something more concrete.

"Sarah, we saw you earlier, with a boy. He was talking to you about something. It looked important."

Sarah smiled slightly. For a moment, her expression opened, became less guarded.

"That was Nathan," she said.

"He ran off," Mulder said.

"My grandfather hates him," Sarah admitted. "Nate is sixteen. Pop can't understand why he wants to come talk with me. I'm only eleven."

"But you think it's OK?" asked Scully.

"I know it is," Sarah said. "Pop is afraid I'll end up like my mother. He's very scared of that."

"Did he tell you that?" Scully questioned.

"No. I can tell - I know things." The girl's eyes darted up, watching for their reactions. Seeing none, she went back to speaking.

"I'm not like my mother," she affirmed. "Hardly at all. I'm more like Pop. But he doesn't understand that. Nathan just wants to be my friend. We talk. That's all."

"And he understands things that your school friends don't?" Scully asked.

"Yes. Sometimes," the girl explained.

"Sarah," Mulder pressed on, "Do you think of yourself as a genius?"

"That's what people tell me," the girl said without embarrassment. "It's hard for me to say. My brain works this way all the time. I don't remember how it was, before. People tell me that I'm different. I guess they wouldn't lie."

"What do you think changed you?" Mulder asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I think about it all the time - how people become the way they are. I used to think it was all a matter of genetics, you know? I know people tell Pop how proud he should be, how talented I am. But I know Pop and Gran shouldn't be proud, because they didn't have anything to do with it. And I can't be proud, because I didn't have anything to do with it. Sometimes..."

The girl's voice faded away to a whisper, and she stopped walking. She turned to face them. Her eyes were frightened, now. Mulder squatted down, meeting her gaze. She cleared her throat; the words poured out.

"Sometimes it scares me. I don't know where the ideas originate. It's as if... someone else is using my body to make things, to do things. Sometimes I think that every time I end up in the woods...that the messages are coming into my mind. That they're telling me the things I know."

The girl broke Mulder's gaze, her eyes growing distant again. She suddenly moved away, pulling ahead of both Scully and Mulder. She walked briskly now, keeping a space between them, kicking rocks down the road. Her braids bobbed on her back. This discussion was over.

Scully looked up at Mulder. He widened his eyes and shrugged slightly. It was a silent walk back to the hotel. When they reached the driveway, Sarah shouted a goodbye and darted off, heading across the field.

Scully started to cross to her room, but Mulder clasped her elbow.

"Come with me," he said in a quiet voice. "I'd like to see that painting."

Scully nodded.

One of the hotel beds had been removed to give Sarah more space, and now this place was a typical girl's bedroom. The curtains and bedspread were all in shades of rose and pink, and the floor was littered with sneakers and dirty laundry. Except for the painting on the wall, the room might belong to any eleven-year-old.

The mural wasn't what Scully had been expecting. She didn't know what she had been expecting. Rainbows and butterflies? Artistically rendered interpretations of complex physics equations? Tunnels leading into bright lights? Little grey men? How did genius express itself in an eleven-year-old's hand?

What Scully saw was horses. Dozens of them - a stampede - all over the wall, in purple and cobalt blue and emerald green. They were beautiful, graceful, galloping in waves. Three horses at the front of the pack leaped from the side wall onto the front wall. The legs were dark, narrow, free. The bellies were wide and full, pale in their centers, deepening toward their edges. The colors were vibrant. When Scully blinked her eyes, a startling impression of coolness and life stayed with her.

Mulder's hand moved over the wall slowly, almost reverently.

"What do these remind you of, Scully?" he murmered pensively. "Think about your anthropology courses..."

The resemblance was suddenly clear. Unmistakable.

"Those cave paintings..." Scully breathed. "At Lascaux, in France."

"Mm hmmm..." said Mulder. "All those horses...drawn by early men, and accidentally preserved for millenia."

Scully went to return Sarah's room key to Mrs. Thomas. The woman was sitting in front of the small lobby television. With her was her husband. His chin was down on his chest; he must be dozing. Scully took a good look at him. He was obviously a working man - had always been. Over his dark tan was a new sunburn, and his skin carried the lines of many other summers spent outdoors. He wasn't old yet - his body was still strong. But Scully would bet that he hadn't planned on raising another child.

Angie Thomas rose to greet Scully.

"Quite a picture in Sarah's room, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes, it is," Scully confirmed. "She is a remarkable girl."

"Mmmm," agreed Mrs. Thomas. "She is. She is..." The woman's voice drifted off, tight and pinched.

"But?" Scully asked.

"But sometimes I get worried when I think about her future.. after what happened to her mother. It was quite a blow to Sarah."

"It must have been hard for you, too."

"Well," sighed the woman. "I can't regret the circumstances that gave me Sarah. She's been wonderful for us, back when she was a baby, and again, now. It's just that..." The woman's voice trailed off.

"What?" Scully questioned gently.

"She's such an old soul. So much her own, now. Do you know what I mean?" Angie asked.

"No..." Scully leaned in toward the woman.

"I mean, she's complete inside herself. She loves us, and she knows we love her. But she doesn't need us. It's as if she decided, after that horrible mess back in California, that she'd had enough. She's separate. She's her own country. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," murmured Scully. "I think I do."

"I used to think that if you loved someone long and hard enough, it could work miracles. But then there was Mary. And it's been two years now, with Sarah, and... I'm not sure I believe that anymore. Do you?"

"I think I do." Scully tossed the words out, more a wish than a belief. The woman nodded slowly.

It was late, now. Scully leaned back in the upholstered chair in Mulder's hotel room. A heavy dinner after the heat and bright sun of the day was making her logy. But it was too cool here to leave just yet.

"Tomorrow night, Mulder," she called in a loud voice, "We swap hotel rooms. You've got the AC that works."

"Yeah, yeah," Mulder groaned, emerging from the bathroom. He sat down on the bed across from her, looking at her expectantly.

"Well?" he urged.

"Well, of course, she's amazing. I heard her playing the piano earlier. And that painting..."

"But..." hinted Mulder, reading the tone in her voice.

"Well," Scully said. "Don't you think it's a little convenient that she only disappears in the summertime, when it's warm and comfortable? I'm not sure we can rule out the possibility that she is just a runaway."

"A genius runaway."

"Well, talent is often latent, Mulder," Scully explained. "Look at Einstein. He was considered an imbecile in his childhood."

"But Scully," Mulder countered rationally, "He didn't go, overnight, from being a normal child to one who could compose music and do trigonometry. There's something going on here. The memory loss? The time loss? And her turning up in the woods? After Oregon? Don't deny that abduction was the first thing that came to your mind."

Scully couldn't deny it. So she chose neutrality. One of them had to stay clear.

"We're dealing with a troubled girl." she said. "Her grandmother told me something about her parents. It hasn't been a nuclear family life, Mulder."

"No," Mulder said, "And half the children in the country don't have a nuclear family life, Scully. More than half. But they don't disappear, or lose their memories, or become geniuses."

"What about her friendship with that boy?" Scully questioned.

"Well, I admit that's a little unusual - a sixteen-year-old boy spending that much time with a sixth grader."

"Mulder," Scully stated firmly, "We may be seeing the beginning of real trouble. If Sarah's mind is somehow changing - if she is developing sudden genius, whatever the cause - it might not be a good thing. You're the psychologist. You've seen the historical studies linking genius with neurosis - or even psychosis."

"Very tenuous connections, Scully," said Mulder, a sudden edge to his voice. "There's never been a clear correlation established between genius and mental illness."

Scully closed her eyes and leaned her head back in the chair, sighing.

"Well, what do you think, Mulder?" she asked him.

It was the prompt he had been waiting for. He dove in.

"I think that Sarah's mind has been influenced by something that's not human," he said, quickly. "What if her theory is true? That whatever - whoever - is taking her to the woods is feeding her information? Information that's not available to the general human population? Or..."

Mulder's voice trailed off, and for a moment his eyes focused on some internal landscape. He rubbed his chin. Scully watched a familiar intense excitement flicker behind his gaze.

"What about the paintings?" he said at last, words coming quick and low. "It's something I never even considered. What if the information she's receiving is inside all of us - only we can't reach it? Those horses - you've seen them before. They're part of prehistory. Maybe she's tapping into the collective unconscious - the historical memories of the human race."

Scully let the words settle, then sighed lightly. A small smile played across her lips.

"Or maybe," she said, "She's an eleven year old girl, going through her horse phase. You know, I read all the 'Misty of Chincoteague' books when I was in elementary school. I thought Marguerite Henry should be president."

A near-smile crossed Mulder's face. He let his chin sink down onto his chest and sighed heavily - his familiar gesture of temporary surrender.

"It's late, Scully," he said, his voice gentle now. "Go back to your very hot room and get some rest."


	2. Chapter 2

Scully was barely dressed and out of her room the next morning when Mulder pulled up in the driveway. Dust settled around the car as it came to a halt. Someone was in the passenger's seat.

Mulder's legs unfolded from the driver's side door, and he waved a large orange spray can in Scully's direction. From the opposite door tumbled Sarah Thomas, hair pulled back sloppily into a ponytail, forcing the remains of a doughnut into her mouth.

From where she was standing, Scully could see a figure lurking in the shade of the old maple. It was the tall boy - Nathan. He signalled wildly, catching Sarah's attention. The girl smiled slightly.

"'Bye," she waved to Mulder, as she fell into step with Nathan. The two of them tripped over the grassy field.

Scully watched them walk away.

"Where were you, Mulder?" she asked.

"Had to go into town to get bug spray," he said. "We're going to the forest this morning, remember?"

"Mulder..." Scully questioned tentatively, "Why did you bring the girl with you?"

Mulder raised his eyebrows.

"She wanted to ride along. Why?"

Scully shifted her eyes away and shook her head slightly.

" I found a great breakfast place," Mulder said, bypassing Scully's remark. "The Park Ranger is going to meet us there in twenty minutes."

The Ranger, Simonds, had a wealth of knowledge about the local flora and fauna, as well as the local folklore. Scully listened intently through forkful after forkful of gingerbread waffles. May as well eat now. It was going to be too hot later on.

"Contusett is one of the oldest forests in the state," Simonds said. "In most of New England, arable land was stripped of trees when settlers moved in. They wanted the whole region to be farmland. Of course, it wasn't. Too rocky. But they kept trying. They'd pile all the granite into stone walls in the middle of their fields. They're all over the woods, today, where the farmland has reverted back to forest. But there aren't any stone walls in Contusett. Records show that the whole park - two hundred square miles - has been forested since before the white men came. It was never settled."

"What about the settlers who haunt the park?" Scully asked through a mouthful of food.

Mulder looked up at her quizzically. Simonds shook his head.

"As far as we can tell, they're just a legend. There was no smallpox epidemic in Kingston. But the legend may be based on truth. There've been rumors that those woods were haunted for a long, long time. It's possible that some family, at some point in history, did die of a fever out there."

"Contusett is also the oldest State Park in Massachusetts. A rich man named Arnold Parker was the last owner. He died without descendants and willed the land to the state with the stipulation that it never be developed. And, with the exception of the power lines that the electric company pushed through in 1957, it has kept its word. Of course, now we don't know..."

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked.

"Well," said Simonds, "The towns around here are hurting for money. And this is a very popular place for developers right now. Big homes, four bathrooms, the whole thing. High taxes. So the towns are claiming that the state overstepped its bounds in taking possession of the park in the first place. There's a fairly heated battle raging over whether they can take back their sections of the park and sell them off to developers."

"That would be a shame," said Mulder.

"Yeah," agreed Simonds. "That's an understatement. If you think about the age of these woods, compared to the age of the oldest citizen of this town... It makes you wonder what right we have to decide on the fate of he forest. It's been here since long before we came. Since before the Indians, probably. Every plant in those woods has a reason for being there. The DNA in those trees has been passed down for thousands of years. Have you ever read the studies? That each plant emits its own aura? That the aura of one plant will respond to injury inflicted on another plant?"

"And," Mulder interjected, "They like Beethoven better than Rap."

Simonds looked up, embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. Enough pontificating. Personal agenda. They tell me I sound like I came out of a time warp from 1972."

Mulder and Simonds finished the last of their coffee. Mulder fixed his eyes on Scully and did not remove them.

"What?" she asked after a minute.

"Are you ready to leave those waffles?" Mulder asked. "The woods are going to be pretty hot if we wait much longer."

They were already very hot. Even the shade of the trees couldn't mitigate the heat of the day. But it was beautiful. Pines rose hundreds of feet above their heads like the pillars of ancient cathedrals. The lower sections of the trunks were bare of foliage. Dead branches, decades old, stuck out like skeletal arms. The ground was carpeted with brown needles. Among the trunks, where a little light could reach the ground, grew patches of oval-leaved bushes. Other than that, though, the floor was almost free of undergrowth. Tannic acid. The name jumped into Scully's mind, a long-forgotten surprise from her botany classes. The decay of evergreen needles produced large amounts of tannic acid in the soil, which eliminated growth of many types of underbrush.

"The park is pretty large," said Simonds, preparing to leave for his station. "But it's covered with trails. They're well-marked. It's almost impossible to get lost here in the daytime."

"It's all right," said Mulder. "We've got the map. And cellular phones. Where was Sarah Thomas found the last time she disappeared? If there's any remaining evidence, it's most likely there."

"She was found right up by the power lines. Where the Parker Trail meets the lines."

They hiked up the trail, following the red-triangle markings painted on trees and boulders. Within the hour, Scully's water bottle was nearly empty. The heat was astonishing. The scenery was beautiful but repetitive - wave after wave of carpeted forest. Scully wondered how much of her ability to appreciate scenic beauty depended on her being cool, dry and comfortable. A high percentage, she estimated. As she moved on, the heat grew overwhelming, almost suffocating. She felt as if the trees were growing closer and closer together. Her heart pounded more quickly than it should. She glanced at Mulder. He hiked forward seriously, sweat dripping down his face, eyes staring ahead fixedly.

"Do you ever get spooked in the woods, Mulder?" she asked.

He looked back at her curiously.

"Don't you feel a little strange right now?" she added.

Mulder's face relaxed, and he stopped walking.

"Like the woods are alive? Like someone is watching us?"

Scully nodded.

"Panic," he said.

"I'm not panicking..." Scully started defensively.

"No, no," said Mulder. " 'Panic.' It comes from the name of the Greek god Pan. God of the woods. He was known to cause unwarranted and overwhelming fear in lonely places. People have always felt this way. The Greeks had no psychologists to explain what you're feeling, so they invented Pan."

"Mmm," Scully mused after a moment, "Maybe we invented psychology because we weren't willing to admit that Pan exists and that he's stronger than our rational minds."

Mulder wiped his brow.

"Sometimes you surprise me, Scully."

Ahead of them, at the top of a ridge, they saw blue skies.

"That must be the power lines," Mulder said, hiking more quickly.

A fence had been built by the power company with all the best intentions. It was made of high chain links. Numerous signs along its length proclaimed "WARNING: HIGH VOLTAGE. Do No Enter." But humans had disregarded the signs for years. Where the path met the power lines, the fence was down completely, and tracks from four-wheelers and motorcycles zigzagged off along the line of the wires.

Mulder shook his head in frustration. This must be a primary meeting spot for riders. The dirt had been turned over recently. Bushes were crushed to the ground. The area was littered with beer cans and soda bottles. Underbrush overgrew everything. Even if there were evidence here, they wouldn't find it.

Scully walked further down the path. Steel towers rose higher than the trees around them, great grey frameworks. Strung across their tops, the power lines crossed the sky. Scully could hear a low buzzing pouring out of them. She could almost feel waves of electrical energy pulsing into her skin.

Beneath the towers was a maintenance road, and where the pines had been cut down, the flora changed dramatically. The ground was in full sunshine here, and hundreds of birch saplings stretched upward. Under Scully's feet, clinging to the sandy soil, crunched moss and lichens. The beginnings of blueberries blushed from delicate bushes. Off on a small rise, a tangled web of wild roses stood in full bloom. Scully breathed in their scent. Strange how these flowers, growing on scarred and discarded land, could carry the same sweet smell as the expensive ones from a greenhouse. She began to walk over to pick one, but quickly changed her mind. Leaves from a dozen unidentified plants rubbed against her bare legs. She felt an immediate irritation develop on her right calf. She wiped at the skin. It was covered with a watery fluid.

"What's the matter, Scully?" asked Mulder, striding toward her.

"Oh, nothing, I think," Scully answered. "Some dew from those plants rubbed off on my legs, and it feels strange. It's probably poison ivy...or sumac...or something else I've never had before."

"It's pretty late in the day for dew," Mulder said, doubtfully. "Do your legs itch?"

Scully evaluated her condition.

"No. They tingle. Just barely."

Mulder peered down to examine the plants, and wrapped a plastic bag around the stem of one, pulling it from the ground.

"Well, I'm no expert, Scully," he said, "But I know poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac, and I can't find any. I don't think I've ever seen this plant before. I'm going to take it back and show it to Simonds. He'll know what it is. Come on. I think we should go. The sun's getting higher."

Simonds looked at the plant. It bore small green leaves, in groups of three, on a narrow, vine-like stem. Each leaf exuded a thin, yellowish fluid. Simonds was at a loss to identify the plant.

"I've lived in Massachusetts my whole life," he said. "And I've worked here for six years. This is the first time I've ever seen that one."

"Well, it can't be very dangerous," said Scully. "I can't feel the tingling anymore."

"I'll send it to Washington, anyway," said Mulder. "Maybe we've found a new species. You know, if you do, they let you name it after yourself."

"Have you read any of the research on power lines and cancer, Mulder?" Scully asked, back in the car.

"I can't say I have," admitted Mulder.

"A lot of schools were built along power lines, because the land was cheaper. And families started noticing that too many children were contracting leukemia. Some studies have reported a two-fold increase in cases of leukemia among children raised along power lines. The electromagnetic field - EMF - seems to cause mutations in white blood cells. And that's just the initial data. There's a possiblity that EMF's cause other biological changes, as well."

"Could they cause a new strain of plant to develop?"

Scully looked mildly surprised.

"It's not likely, Mulder," she said. "Single cells are one thing; complex organisms are another. We can develop new strains of plants in a greenhouse fairly quickly, by controlling pollenization. But natural selection takes a very long time - even when prompted by man-made environmental factors. It's like the difference between our breeding Cocker Spaniels and waiting for them to evolve naturally from the wolves."

"Then how do you think the EMF relates to the case, Scully?" Mulder asked.

"Well, it's been hypothesized that the navigating abilities of birds and other migratory animals are related to the magnetic field of the earth. That somehow, their brains are receptive to the magnetism. That it draws them back to the same place, year after year. The swallows come back to Capistrano. In Mexico, there is one spot where Monarch butterflies congregate every year."

"And you think Sarah is using the EMF of these power lines to navigate here when she disappears?" Mulder questioned.

"Think about it. Sarah grew up in that hotel for the first four years of her life. She...gestated there. From the hotel to the power lines can't be more than a mile, through the woods. And every time she disappears, she ends up back there..."

Mulder looked over from behind the steering wheel.

"But more than that, Mulder," Scully continued, "The nervous system is really just a series of wires carrying very fine electrical signals. What if the EMF is able somehow to affect Sarah's brain waves? To change the way that she thinks?"

"What is the possibility of that, Scully?" Mulder asked.

"Very remote. Still..."

Scully took out her cellular phone and dialed information, then hung up dialed the phone again. The voice on the other end of the line was cool, professional, efficient. It only took a moment.

"Who was that?" Mulder asked.

"The Maintenance Director," Scully answered, "Of Central Massachusetts Electric - or at least a secretary. He will meet with us tomorrow at 11:00. I'd like to ask him about the power lines."

Dust rose up from the gravel driveway as they pulled up to the hotel. The ground held no moisture. Scully climbed out of the car, peeling her legs away from the upholstery. Mulder stayed where he was.

"Aren't you coming?" Scully asked.

"I'm just going to take this plant into town to send it to the lab in D.C." Mulder said. "And the wardrobe I brought for this trip is proving unsatisfactory. I need to pick up at least one pair of shorts."

Scully opened the door to Mulder's hotel room. May as well take advantage of the air conditioning. She spread out on the bed, pulling the files on Sarah's medical data. Bloodwork normal. Reflexes normal. Growth normal. It appeared that, medically, there was nothing wrong with Sarah.

Scully flipped open the neurological evaluation. Here were the EEG results - the records of Sarah's brain waves. They were well within the normal parameters. Sarah certainly didn't have brain damage. But there was something odd... Scully scanned the lines on the chart. She should review her neurology notes. Something about the patterns here reminded her of...what? She struggled to remember, but drew a blank. She would have to check that later.

Scully looked at a thicker file. "Sarah Thomas - Psychological Profiles."

The original testing had been done by a Dr. Frank Osmond in Boston. It was dated a little over a year ago. Right after Sarah had begun to disappear. The doctor had dealt mainly with standardized IQ tests and personality batteries. The conclusions were bland.

"Despite testimony by many of recent highly unusual events in Sarah's life, she appears to be well within the normal range of psychological response. The IQ level of the subject puts her in the extremely gifted category. I have, in fact, never come across a patient who scored so highly. She seems to be coping well with this status. Though she has, within the past year, experienced a shifting of her home situation and primary caretakers, no undue stress was noted."

Scully paused to wonder how much trauma it took, in this age of divorce and custody battles, and mothers who abandoned their children to drugs, before psychologists considered a child to be under undue stress.

The second psychologist, Diana Shirley from the Kingston Elementary School, had begun seeing Sarah in the fall of the last school year. Her records told a different story. The most recent entry, from May, summarized the psychologist's concerns:

"Sarah has, throughout this school year, begun to feel isolated from her peers. She claims that they 'don't understand her.' This may very well be the case, given her extreme giftedness in many areas. She has been said by her teachers to 'separate' herself from the other children, particularly during art class, where she will spend the period sketching 'frantically.' Her reading teacher has had a difficult time keeping her interested, and has been forced to provide Sarah with many adult novels to challenge her. In math, she is doing high school level work at her own pace. Teachers have recommended special tutoring, but recent budget cuts have eliminated services for gifted and talented students."

"The strain of Sarah's abilities appears to be impacting her emotionally. She has mentioned several times that she has nightmares which sometimes keep her awake at night. She denies that these fears stem from her social isolation, however, and seems content in her home situation. I will continue to monitor Sarah's progress throughout her sixth grade year."

The records went on and on, endless pages of numbers and charts documenting Sarah's extreme giftedness, her ability to out-test other students her age.

Scully checked her watch. It had been over two hours. Her stomach rumbled. Where was Mulder? She stepped into the heat of the day, and saw the car parked outside her room. She marched to the hotel lobby.

"Have you seen my partner?" she inquired of Jack Thomas, the grandfather, who sat dozing in front of the TV.

"Not recently," the man coughed. "I think he and Sarah took off down the road a while ago."

Scully took in a deep breath and let it out quickly. Damnit, Mulder...

"How long ago?"

"I'm not sure. Hour, hour and a half, maybe."

Scully glanced at her watch for a second time. It was almost five-thirty. Her stomach rumbled again.

The nearest Burger King was less than two miles down the road. She forced the food down. She wasn't sure if it was heat or hunger or irritation that made her eat so quickly . But a full stomach and a cold soda soothed the heat and the hunger, and her irritation abated slightly. On her way out of the restaurant, she went by the drive-through and picked up another meal.

Mulder was sitting on the porch of the hotel when she got back. The sun was slanting in low, but was still bright on his face.

"Mr. Thomas said you were looking for me?" he said.

"I was starving. I brought you dinner."

"Thanks, Scully."

Scully sat down in the seat next to Mulder. The sunlight was blinding. She pushed her chair into the shade, and glanced around. The grandparents were not here. Sarah was nowhere to be seen.

"Mulder, I need to talk to you," Scully said.

"Mmm hmm?"

"About Sarah. And the appropriateness of this case for us."

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked.

"Mulder, I think you're... I think you're getting too close to this case. Twice today when I looked for you, you were off with Sarah. Where did you go this afternoon?"

Mulder looked at her incredulously.

"We went for a walk. I thought she might give me some more information. She wanted to show me a bridge she built over a stream. It was amazing. She used..."

Scully cut him off.

"Mulder, I don't want to hear about that."

"Then what?" he demanded.

Scully floundered. She hated crossing this line. But there was no turning back now. Her words picked up speed as she continued.

"Mulder, don't you think I noticed? Don't you think I see the resemblance? Sarah looks like Samantha. It's obvious. Anyone could see it. What are you doing, socializing with an eleven-year-old girl? With a girl who looks like your sister?"

Scully cleared her throat, trying to push the reedy quality out of her voice.

Mulder pulled his gaze away and stood, blinking into the sunlight. He was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, it was in a quiet, deep voice. It was a voice Scully knew, the one he reserved for her, for words that were important to him.

"This isn't about Samantha, Scully," he stated.

Scully stood, turning her face from the sun, and searched his eyes.

"Then what is it, Mulder? In two and a half years, I've never seen you lose your... never seen you become attached to anyone involved in a case. This girl is already unstable - she's got a drug-addicted mother and a sixteen year old boy for her best friend. She's been shuttled from coast to coast like someone's baggage. Do you think she needs an FBI agent as a sidekick? Someone who's going to leave in a couple days? What are you thinking? What are you doing?"

Mulder started to speak, then looked away again. His face changed rapidly, and Scully couldn't read his expression. He kicked blindly at the ground, shifted his body uncomfortably.

"I'm not..." he started again, haltingly, "Do you think every girl in braids pushes me to the edge, Scully? Is that what you think?"

He turned and looked hard at her before walking away.

The air in the darkened room was still, dead. The incessant droning of an unseen mosquito drilled into Scully's mind. Biology's little torture device. Scully lay awake, hoping for the breath of a breeze. She had tried to read Sarah Thomas's medical file again - had gotten as far as scanning the EEG's - but couldn't concentrate. It was too hot to think, too hot to sleep.

Even if it were cool, she wouldn't be asleep.

She kept coming back to Mulder's voice.

"This isn't about Samantha, Scully."

That voice had never lied to her before. She trusted it entirely. He hadn't been lying to her. He had believed what he was saying.

And that scared her. Could he really not see?

Samantha. The name rolled around in Scully's mind until it became nonsensical, just a string of syllables. It was no more than a sound - a sound that went with the photos she had seen, a sound that stood for the smiling little girl at the beach, the pensive child on the jungle gym. Such an abstract concept for Scully. For her there was no meaning behind the sound, there were no memories to flesh out the pictures.

She wondered what Samantha would be like now, if she had never been taken. What Mulder would be like. Grown brother and sister. They would be close, if their parents had managed to hold the family together. They'd see each other on holidays. Maybe they'd visit each other in the summer.

Mulder? He wouldn't be FBI. Maybe a psychologist in private practice. Scully envisioned a wife somewhere, and a family. Mulder's children and Samantha's children would get to know each other. Cousins. Mulder would keep Samantha's phone number in his rolodex. Once in a while, as he flipped through the names of his business contacts, he would think about his sister.

But now it wasn't just once in a while. Mulder thought about Samantha every day. Scully knew that. She knew. The vacuum left by his sister's absence had made Samantha more important than she was ever meant to be. She had never been allowed to become a quiet presence in the back of Mulder's life. If only Samantha were alive, and well, Mulder could let her slip back where she belonged. If only her body had been found, mercifully, years ago...

Scully shook her head. It was the first time she had let that thought surface. God, was she really so selfish?...

But... no... it wasn't a selfish thought. If they had found a body, Mulder could have grieved. If he could have grieved Samantha, he would be free. This hunger, this need to find the truth, would have no hold on him. It wasn't something Scully wished for her own sake. It wasn't a selfish thought.

If Mulder could have grieved Samantha, she would never have met him.

She sighed.

Her mind filled with thoughts of her own brothers and sister, her childhood. How old had she been when she had chosen to become a doctor? Ten or eleven? So young. And after that, her whole life had been a steady progression toward that goal. One step at a time, always visualizing the prize at the end.

But Mulder's life? Mulder's life had been one long sidetrack. What would he have chosen for himself, if he had been allowed to make a choice?

But no. It wasn't always about choosing. Scully knew that. Maybe it never was. Maybe you just waited until one thing became so important, so necessary to your life, that your choice was taken away. Maybe Mulder had learned that lesson young.

His voice came back to her again, wounded, disbelieving.

"Do you think every girl in braids pushes me to the edge, Scully? Is that what you think?"

She breathed in deeply. No, Mulder.

It was too late to go next door. She had to live with his words until morning.


	3. Chapter 3

Mulder never slept late. He was already up and about early the next morning, and Scully couldn't find him. He wasn't in his room, wasn't in the lobby. The car was still there. He must have gone out for a run.

Scully poured herself a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker in the lobby. For all their poor decorating choices, the Thomases made good coffee. She went out to the porch and sat down with the front page of the morning paper, scanning the headlines.

Jack Thomas came and sat near her.

"Good morning," he said, cheerfully.

"Morning," Scully said, forcing a smile. "You haven't seen my partner around here, have you?"

"No, but I've been out working in the shop for an hour or so."

Scully nodded. She tried to go back to reading the paper, but she could feel Mr. Thomas's eyes on her. She set the paper down and looked at him.

"Have you learned anything new," the man implored, "about Sarah?"

"We're considering several possibilities," Scully shared, "But you must understand, Mr. Thomas. We often run into phenomena that remain unexplained. It's the nature of our work."

The man seemed to shrink.

"I understand," he said after a moment, "It's just that I'm afraid that if she keeps disappearing...or whatever it is that happens to her...one day she won't come back. It won't let her be. She gets harder and harder for us to understand, every time. I'm afraid that soon there won't be a school that can teach her anything. And it's not just facts that she knows. She understands people... thoughts. No girl her age should be able to read people so deeply. Who knows what it's doing to her, inside? These time lapses. And the only friend she seems to have is that Nathan Hanson..."

"Tell me about Nathan," said Scully.

"Oh," said Thomas, shrugging his shoulders, "He's not a bad kid, I guess. He lives just at the end of our property, through the woods. He used to come around here when he was a little boy - when Sarah was a baby. But he got strange...odd...when he started school."

"Strange?" Scully questioned.

"Well...withdrawn. He didn't talk much. He ran away a couple times, when he was only five or six. It really bothered his parents. They're funny people. They got very particular about who the boy is friends with. He's pretty smart. They sent him to a private school, you know, for gifted kids, almost from the start. But since last year, whenever he's home on vacation, he just wants to spend time with Sarah. I love Sarah, and I trust her, but it's just not normal - a grown boy like that wanting to spend time with a little girl."

"And Nathan is only home during the summer?" Scully asked.

"Yes... the Hansons have money. They go away during Christmas - someplace warm. In fact, from September to May, we never see Nathan, or his parents, for that matter."

Scully pictured Nathan and Sarah, crossing into the woods, the boy so much taller than the girl. She felt a twinge in her chest.

"You don't approve of their spending time together?" Scully asked.

"No... and I wouldn't let them..." the man began, "But Angie is probably right. If we make a big fuss about it, they'll want to be together even more. Sarah seems to put an awful lot of stock in his friendship, and I guess she needs to associate with someone. The boy kind of stays away from me... he knows how I feel. But Angie says that when I'm not here, the two of them just watch TV, or sit on the porch, talking. Normal things. And Angie says that Nathan will grow out of it when he finishes school and goes away to college. I keep waiting and waiting..."

From the speaker by the window came the familiar, eerie piano music.

"There's Sarah now," said Jack Thomas.

Scully swallowed the last of her coffee.

"I'd better go find my partner," she said.

She entered the lobby with a small hope that Mulder wouldn't be there, but he was - seated next to Sarah on the piano bench, wearing a set of headphones that matched the girl's. His eyes were closed as he listened to the music she was playing. Scully approached and laid her hand on Sarah's shoulder. The girl swung around to face her, immediately stopping her hands. She blinked up at Scully.

"Sarah," Scully said, "Would you mind if I borrowed Agent Mulder? I need to speak to him."

"I wouldn't mind," said Sarah. "I have to go get my breakfast, anyway." She carefully removed her headphones and laid them on top of the piano. Mulder took his off, too. Scully walked around to face him. His eyes were guarded.

"Mulder..." Scully began, awkwardly. "I need to say that... that I don't understand what's happening between you and Sarah. But I was wrong last night. I may not understand, but I need you to know that I...trust that you're doing what's right."

Mulder looked straight ahead, at the music spread out on the piano. He blinked several times, then spoke.

"You know, Scully," he said slowly, choosing his words with care, "Sarah is not a... Samantha didn't play the piano. She couldn't do trigonometry."

He looked up at her, expecting - needing - some sign that she understood. And even though she didn't understand, she nodded.

The air conditioner gurgled angrily. From the way it looked, Mulder might have to sleep on the floor tonight. Paperwork covered both beds, as well as every available inch on the table, nighstand, dresser and TV. But Scully's mind wasn't on the paperwork.

She gave Mulder a replay of her conversation with Jack Thomas.

"Nathan has a history of withdrawal from his peers," she finished. "No friends or girlfriends in his peer group. And he is five years older than Sarah."

"You don't think he's abusing her?" asked Mulder, eyes tracking hollowly.

"I don't know..." Scully said, uneasily. "No. She doesn't act like a child who's being abused. She goes off with him willingly. She speaks of him fondly. In fact, that's the only time I've seen her smile - when she was talking about him, or walking off with him. Angie Thomas seems comfortable with their friendship. Even Jack doesn't seem to think he's a bad kid, and he's a protective grandfather."

"So why are you uncomfortable with this, Scully?"

"Because..." Scully answered, "His friendship with her began right after her first disappearance. And he is only home during the summer months, which is when Sarah's disappearances take place. There must be some connection. He must be linked to this somehow."

They found Sarah sitting out in the sun, lap covered by a large sketchbook. In her hand, she held a thick children's marker. The sketches before her were anything but childish. Her strokes were bold, confident, impressionistic. She had covered one page with wildflowers, explosions of color, and was lost in concentration as she began on a second page.

Scully sat down in the grass beside here.

"How are you, Sarah?" she asked.

"Fine."

"It's a beautiful picture, Sarah." Scully said.

"Thank you," the girl said politely, without meaning.

"Sarah, we'd like to ask you some questions about Nathan."

The girl set the marker carefully on the ground, and folded the sketchbook so that her drawing was no longer visible.

"What about him?" she said defensively.

"We're wondering what you two do together," Scully said, "when you leave the hotel."

The girl's eyes maintained their cool distance, but Scully saw her jaw clench.

"My grandfather asked me about this, you know," she said.

"Asked you about?" urged Scully.

"He talked to me about... 'appropriate and inappropriate behavior...' I think that's what he called it. The teachers use the real words in school. My grandfather was wrong. You're wrong. Nathan is my..." She paused as if looking for the right word. "My best friend. He would never...do anything to me. He would never hurt me."

The eyes closed off completely. Scully had stumbled down the wrong path. She grasped for words to put herself back on balance, but Mulder took over, squatting down close.

"Sarah," he asked. "You and Nathan have a lot in common."

The girl eyed him warily.

"Do you think that Nathan knows anything about what happens to you in the woods? Does he ever talk about it with you?"

Sarah looked straight into Mulder's eyes, her gaze unwavering.

"No," she proclaimed. "He never does."

She stood up abruptly and walked back towards the hotel. Scully shook her head in frustration.

"Well, we succeeded in alienating her," she said. "I guess her friendship with Nathan is a sensitive subject."

Mulder bent over. Sarah had left her sketchbook lying on the ground. Mulder picked it up, and flipped slowly through the pages as he folded it closed. The markers, too, lay scattered about in the grass. Scully gathered them up and tossed them back in their box.

"We may as well bring these things inside," Scully said.

Mulder didn't answer her. He was still, holding the sketchbook in front of him, staring at one page.

"Look at this, Scully," he said, turning the book around so that she could see.

It was a watercolor sketch. The image was deep, solid. It showed the night sky, hanging over trees and a field. This field. Light jumped from the page. The sky swam with stars. The field was alive, illuminated, shimmering with starlight. Scully shook her head. To be able to lay down a world of light, on a flat piece of paper. To capture such joy in the night - such beauty.

"It's wonderful," she whispered. "It's different from her other paintings. Heavier, somehow, or ... I don't know."

"But it's not hers," Mulder said, holding it closer so Scully could see the borders, where the white paper was exposed. Across the top, Sarah's name was scrawled, over and over, in pencil. And across the bottom, "From Nate."

"Well,' Scully said after a moment, "Shall we go speak to Nathan Hanson?

Mulder and Scully walked to the Hanson house. They found the path Sarah and Nathan used; it ran straight through the woods behind the hotel to the Hanson's walk. A long driveway, bordered by carefully landscaped flower beds, led to a three-car garage. The front door was surrounded by carved wood and topped by a stained-glass window. The lawns were manicured, the Volvo impeccably clean. Scully's knocks were answered only by the sound of a very large dog behind the door. But a voice called out from behind the house.

"Can I help you?" a man asked, approaching across the side yard.

"Are you Mr. Hanson?" Mulder asked.

"No," the man replied. "I'm his business associate. I'm housesitting. The Hansons are away overnight."

"Well, could you tell them to call Agent Mulder at the Reservoir Hotel? I believe they know who I am. If not, their son can tell them."

The man nodded.

"It's just as well," Mulder said as they walked across the lawn. "We've got to get on the road if we're going to make our appointment with the Electric Company."

The drive to the offices of Central Massachusetts Electric took over an hour. The receptionist expected them. Mulder and Scully were ushered into a small office. A grey-haired man sat behind an oak desk. He smiled as they came through the door.

"I don't get many interviews with the FBI," he said, standing and offering his hand.

"That's probably a good thing," said Mulder.

"Jim Murray. How can I help you?"

"Well," said Scully, "We're investigating a rather unusual case in Kingston, along your power lines. We were hoping to get data about the electrical current running along those lines, and about possible fluctuations in the EMF along the lines."

The man fumbled through a pile of papers on his desk.

"My secretary gave me that idea," he said, "And I actually had a chance to pull some files for you. You're lucky - it's been pretty busy around here."

He opened a grey folder and pulled out a series of line graphs.

"Everything is in order," he said proudly, "Everything is up to federal safety standards, as you'll see."

The graphs were a careful record of voltage and current in the lines over the past four decades. Scully would have to read up on potential hazards of exposure to electromagnetic fields, as well as OSHA standards, before she could make any sort of judgment about the levels shown in the graphs. It would be a long, tedious day at the library. She blinked back the image of boredom that assailed her.

Mulder flipped through the charts as well, making a good show of understanding them. But Jim Murray had something else to show them. He interrupted Mulder's browsing.

"I found something peculiar about that park," he said. "Something weird."

"Weird?" Mulder said, interest returning to his eyes.

"I spoke to the man in charge of monitoring the power lines - George Teixeira." he said. "He's been in the same job since 1967. The company does regular checks, to be sure that the lines are functioning properly. Now, there is a magnetic field set up around any wire that's carrying electricity. Even a wire hooked to a small battery has a field strong enough to set a compass needle spinning. The power lines that run through Kingston, naturally, carry much higher voltage and have a much stronger magnetic field as a result. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about the power lines themselves. As you can see from these graphs, the current is maintained at a constant rate; there is little fluctuation."

"But..." said Scully.

"But George also has a personal fascination with the area around the State Park in Kingston. When he first started working for the power company, he noticed that his magnetometer responded, very slightly, even when he wasn't near the power lines."

"Magnetometer?" Mulder asked.

"An instrument that measures the magnetic field set up around a current. Now, George is an amateur scientist. He found this very strange - set up his own investigation. He's gone back many times over the years, with a meter specially designed to detect very small magnetic fields, and has gotten the same results every time."

"What were the results?" Mulder asked.

"They show that there is a magnetic field in that forest that has nothing to do with the power lines. Its polarity is unrelated to the power lines. George said that it was as if there were a generalized electrical current being carried through the forest itself - through the air or the ground, or even through the plants. And he said the magnetic field seemed to fluctuate - to get strongest in the summer and weakest in the winter. It even varied with the time of day."

Scully tipped her head and looked at Mulder. He raised his eyebrows and held his palms up, shrugging his shoulders slightly.

They returned to the car, carrying the burden of forty years' worth of Central Massachusetts Electric safety records.

"So, Dr. Scully," Mulder said, buckling his seat belt and tossing the files into the back seat. "Is it possible to give a forest an EEG?"

They returned to the hotel. Mulder asked for Sarah, but she was out.

"I don't know," said Jack Thomas. "She left on her bike after lunch. Sometimes she goes to the library, and sometimes she just rides down to the Bargain Barn. They sell art supplies."

Five o'clock came and went. Mulder got take-out hamburgers and they waited on the patio for Sarah to come back. At six the Thomases began to make regular patrols, walking out the door, looking down the driveway, peering around the curve into the road. At six-thirty Jack Thomas came out and sat down. And after ten minutes of waiting, he looked at Scully and Mulder imploringly.

"Sarah is never late like this," he said, "Unless...This is how it always starts."

The man's voice broke. His hands - large, tan, strong - trembled as he clutched his hat.

It was as if a travelling carnival had set up shop in the driveway of the hotel - the color, the noise, the excitement. Scully was amazed at the efficiency of the operation. The whole thing took less than a half hour. There were five uniformed men combing the woods around the motel, as well as a dozen town volunteers organizing to search the forest. Bill Barnes, the chief of Police, was a personal friend of Jack Thomas, which explained the police cooperation. But Scully suspected that the others were primarily interested in the drama - find the girl, rescue the genius. Maybe they would make the local news. She sighed. It didn't really matter what their intentions were.

Field agents from Boston would be arriving soon, as well. Mulder had notified them...

Where was Mulder? He had been right here. Damn. She hadn't meant to let him slip away. She scanned the yard, but couldn't see him. Damnit. If he had gone off... But no. There he was - waiting under the maple tree, closing up his cellular phone. She crossed over to him.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"I've been trying to get in touch with the Hansons. I want to speak to Nathan Hanson - now. I..."

He was cut off by shouting from the road. A volunteer hurried up the driveway, carrying a red bicycle.

"We found this about a mile down the road," the woman said. "At the edge of the woods."

Scully looked at Mulder. His jaw tensed; he drew in a deep breath.

"Mulder," she said. "They'll find her. They've always found her."


	4. Chapter 4

It was past midnight. The lobby was still. Behind the counter, Mrs. Thomas was brewing another pot of coffee. How could it be so hot in the middle of the night? It felt as if all the air in the room had been breathed up, worn out.

Scully's eyes felt heavy. She was coffee-alert, but she could feel fatigue creeping through her limbs. She looked at Mulder. He had been up longer than she had, but there would be no sleep for him tonight. He had settled, unmoving, in a chair; his eyes stared straight ahead. He waited as if it were a practiced skill. He was a picture of utter stillness and patience.

But twice as Scully was watching him, his head jerked up, as if he had forgotten where he was. And twice, his eyes scanned the room until they rested on Scully's face. And she knew that he was thinking of other nights spent like this, awake and waiting. For him, this was only the beginning of waiting.

"Mulder," she said finally, "You're making me nervous."

He shook his head.

"Sorry."

He stood and spun his chair around so that it was no longer facing her.

Scully's eyes jerked open and she started as the familiar trilling of a cellular phone cut through the air. Not hers. Mulder's. He answered, and spoke quietly for several minutes. He gave her a perplexed look, shaking his head.

"That was Washington," he said, "You know that strange plant we found in the woods yesterday?"

"Mm hmm."

"Well, it turns out I was right. We DID discover a new species. The lab is all excited down there. They've never seen that plant before. They couldn't place it as any species native to Massachusetts. And to top it off, that moisture that it was secreting?"

"Mmm?" Scully waited.

"It was an organic compound never identified before. Its molecular structure is distinct, but its framework appears to be similar to that of serotonin."

"Serotonin?" Scully asked, stunned. "From a plant? But that's a mammalian chemical. A neurotransmitter. It's involved in..." Scully wished again for her neurophysiology notes.

"Sleep regulation," said Mulder, "And dream production."

Scully shook her head to clear her thoughts.

"Sarah's EEG..." she said, pacing toward the lobby door.

She returned a few minutes later with the thick file from Sarah's neurologist.

"Look at this, Mulder," she said. "This EEG was taken the morning Sarah got back from her second disappearance. They were worried about epilepsy, seizures. In that respect, the tests came back normal. There is no brain dysfunction. But see this?"

Mulder looked at the chart, then at Scully. He shook his head blankly.

"This was taken when Sarah was wide awake," she said, "But the activity shown on the chart is atypical. It didn't hit me at first. But if I had to guess, I'd say it was the activity of someone about to enter REM sleep."

"A dream state?"

Scully nodded.

"What if," she said slowly, "Sarah is somehow sensitive to this plant chemical? What if it somehow alters her brain chemistry? It could change the way she thinks."

"But how, Scully? And how could a plant secrete a mammalian hormone? You said yourself that mutations like that don't happen in nature."

Scully shook her head.

"I said that they don't happen quickly. But that forest has been there for hundreds of years. A mutation could have developed. I just can't imagine why a plant would secrete a chemical like that. Serotonin works on the nervous system. I'm not aware of any plant cells that would be affected by something like serotonin."

She tipped her head back and rubbed her eyes. Even the caffeine wasn't working anymore.

"I don't know, Mulder... I'm so drowsy I can hardly speak, much less think about neurotransmitters."

"You should sleep," he said. "Here's the key. My room is cooler."

Scully looked at the key, wrapped her fingers around it. Then she settled back into her chair. Mulder was wound tight, and she knew his mind. Its natural tendency now would be to slip into isolation - precisely when it should not. It was better for her to be here, where he would have to remember her presence. Just in case anything happened in the night.

She tried to roll over and was jarred awake by the arm of the chair digging into her ribs. Sitting quickly, she rubbed her side. The lobby was bright with early light. No Mulder. Her eyes swept the room, then looked out into the driveway. The circus was back, in full force. She pushed out the door and moved through the crowd until she found Angie Thomas. The woman's face was a mask of weariness.

"Agent Mulder?" she asked.

"He's gone in to shower and shave," the woman answered. "He didn't sleep last night."

Scully exhaled.

"No news?" she asked.

"No. But night searches are nearly impossible. The trail markings can't be seen, and Bill has enough to worry about without the volunteers getting lost. It's daytime now. We'll find her. I just hate to think that she was out there again, all by herself, all night."

The meeting had been set for eleven o'clock. It had taken most of the morning to reach them, but the Hansons were courteous and prompt. Nathan sat at the head of a long table in the office adjoining the hotel lobby. His baseball cap lay on the table in front of him; he did not take his eyes from it. His red hair fell into his eyes, shading them from view. Scully studied him for a moment. He was well-built, well proportioned. He looked older than sixteen.

Nathan's parents sat on one side of the table, watching carefully. Jack and Angie Thomas sat across from them.

Scully glanced at Mulder again. He was tense, but in control. He understood the way he had to carry himself. The boy was only sixteen.

But he was too tired to waste time or words.

"Nathan," he said, "This has happened to you, hasn't it? You know what happens when Sarah disappears?"

Jack and Angie Thomas looked at Mulder, startled.

Scully watched the Hansons. Their expressions betrayed no surprise; their faces mirrored their son's. They looked down, steadily, considering the table.

Nathan didn't answer. He was silent. But a red flush crept into his face.

"Nathan, why didn't you tell anyone?"

The boy looked up at his parents. The father looked at his son, then at Mulder. He shook his head in surrender.

"It's all right, Nathan," he said.

Mulder glanced from the son to the father and back.

"Why?" he asked.

Nathan gave a heavy sigh and spoke. His voice was tired, old.

"No one would believe what I've seen. They'd say I was crazy. My parents told me that when I was small. When it happened those first times. They told me not to tell anyone. And I never have - not in ten years. No one except Sarah. Not until it happened to me again, and it started happening to her."

Jack Thomas shook his head in frustration.

"But why didn't Sarah tell anyone?" he asked. "Even though she was so afraid, even though she felt so alone? Why didn't she tell anyone that it had happened to you, too?"

Nathan looked at Jack Thomas, then at Mulder. For one instant, Scully saw childhood looking out of the boy's green eyes. They were clear, guileless.

"I told her not to," he said, "She wouldn't break her promise."

The room was silent for a moment. Scully moved closer to the boy.

"Nathan," she said gently, "Do you know what happens in the woods? What happens to her?"

"I don't..." he stammered, "I don't remember much more than Sarah. It's as if time goes away. I find myself in the woods, and it's as if no time has passed. Only now and then..."

Six sets of eyes fixed on the boy. He looked down at the table again.

"...Now and then I know that someone...something...is showing me things. It's as if there are voices coming into me. From something old. They're going into my mind. I can never remember what happens. But... the things I know don't come from me. The things I can do don't come from me."

Suddenly the boy's voice broke completely. He sat, unmoving, and great tears clawed their way down his cheeks. The room was silent for a moment; Mrs. Hanson moved close to her son, putting her arms around his shoulders.

"Nathan," said Mulder gently. "We won't think you're crazy. Can you tell us - where do the voices in your head come from? Is it a person? A living thing?"

The boy's head sank lower on his chest. There was no other response - no movement or sound. His mind was far away.

Mulder looked at Mrs. Hanson, then at her husband. His eyes were angry, tired, questioning.

"Your son isn't crazy," he said deliberately. "This is real."

Mr. Hanson nodded slowly and cleared his throat.

"He told us..." the words came haltingly, "He told us about it the first two times he disappeared. But then he never told us again, and we thought it was over. That he was over it."

"What did he tell you?" asked Mulder, a flicker of impatience creeping into his voice.

"He said that it was the forest. He said that the forest was telling him all its secrets."

A woman's heavy moan cut through the silence of the room. Scully looked at Angie Thomas. The woman began to breathe heavily, irregularly. Her husband clutched her hand tightly, knuckles going white.

"Are you all right, Mrs. Thomas?" Scully asked, swinging to her side.

The woman nodded, but her face was pale. Scully could see her fingers trembling.

Jack Thomas drew in a deep breath.

"It's what he said," the man choked. "About the forest. It's just that...we've heard that before. From our daughter, Mary. Sarah's mother."

Angie Thomas's eyes brimmed with tears. Jack stroked her head gently as he continued.

"We never knew why Mary went so crazy. We couldn't understand how she started with the drugs. But when she'd come home, half out of her mind, she always had the same hallucination. She always said the same thing. 'Get the voices out of my head.' She always told us that the woods were alive...that they were trying to talk to her. To change her."

Jack Hanson looked at Nathan. The boy's face went blank, and his eyes drifted away for a moment. Then he shook his head wearily and nodded several times. He swallowed, cleared his throat, swallowed again. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.

"It's so much older than we are. It knows so much. People die so soon...they don't have time to learn. But it's telling me. It's telling Sarah."

His voice faded away again, and he closed his eyes.

Angie Thomas moved nervously, pouring Scully a cup of coffee, watching her with restless eyes. From behind the office door, Scully could still hear the Hansons' voices, soothing Nathan, easing him back into normal conversation. Scully walked across the lobby wearily, and sat down across a small table from Mulder. His head rested in his hands; he must be overwhelmingly tired. But when he looked up, his eyes were alert, focused.

"Well," Scully said, "If we rule out mass psychosis, we're left with the possibility that Nathan and Mary are right - that the forest is somehow alive."

"It's not beyond plausibility, Scully," Mulder said finally. "Personification of the ecosystem has been been popular for years: 'The earth is alive, she is our mother, she is a living organism.' What if this forest has evolved as a single biological entity - a group of parts working in common? It would be a... higher life form."

Scully tilted her head slightly, considering. Maybe tomorrow she would argue. Right now she was too tired to offer up even a token show of skepticism. She took all the loose facts floating in her mind and felt them slide easily into one theory.

"That would explain the electromagnetic field around the forest. It could be some sort of primitive nervous system - a way for the different species of plants to communicate with each other. Tree roots are fairly good conductors of electrical current."

"And the plant we discovered," Mulder said, "Maybe it's not found anywhere else because it has a specific purpose unique to this... creature. Who knows what effect that chemical would have on animals in the woods...or on people?"

Scully's mind could accept this. Biologists had found amazing and incomprehensible connections among organisms before. The world was miraculous in its complexity - that was the one fact that stood out, above every other fact, in Scully's memory of her biology courses. People understood so little of what went on around them every day.

But this thing the boy was saying... It was beyond anything she had ever read - beyond the imagination of the most esteemed botanists.

"Do you really believe that an ecosystem can develop consciousness, Mulder?" she asked. "Do you believe it's possible that the forest can think... remember... accumulate knowledge? That the forest can communicate information to humans?"

"I don't know, Scully." Mulder shook his head in frustration. "Sarah said it herself: What keeps us from being just a pile of cells? We understand so little about our own consciousness...how WE think. If the magnetic field and the chemicals in the forest were somehow able to affect Sarah's brain...to change the way it functioned, even a little..."

Scully smiled slightly.

"I wonder if Einstein grew up near a forest?" she said.

Volunteers returned from the forest, hot and tired and bug-bitten. They needed food and sleep. New people would have to be brought in. The shadows began to lengthen as the day moved toward evening.

"I'll help search."

It was Mulder's voice. Scully rolled her eyes in fatigue and irritation. There he was, standing with the police chief. She marched across the driveway quickly, gathering and preparing words in haste. But she never had to use them. Bill Barnes was not an unobservant man.

"Agent Mulder," he said, "You've been up all night. You have hardly eaten today. The last thing I need is a missing FBI agent to complicate my search. I want to concentrate on the girl."

Scully watched Mulder's jaw move in frustration. She led him aside.

"Mulder, why don't you go lie down?" she asked, her tone uncompromising. "Get some sleep. I'll come wake you if there's any change."

"I don't..." Mulder began. But he caught Scully's gaze and swallowed his words. He turned away and stalked off to his hotel room.

Scully suspected that he wouldn't sleep. But it was a relief just to have him shut up safe, out of her line of vision. He was stretched thin, and she wasn't far behind. Right now she couldn't do this - couldn't watch him wind himself tighter and tighter.

She sat on the porch and tried to chase off the thoughts that clamored at the edges of her mind. But she was too tired. She thought of Sarah, sitting out there somewhere in the woods, alone. It was over twenty-four hours now. The girl had never been gone this long. Scully could feel the tension growing in the grandparents and in the police officers. They were counting the hours and imagining all the terrors that could happen in this much time.

She thought of Mulder's tight shoulders and the distance growing in his eyes. His words came back to her.

"This isn't about Samantha, Scully."

Not before, maybe. But now...now it was about Samantha, Scully knew, and about her, and about being powerless to do anything. Again.

Scully looked up and watched the sky. From the west, clouds were moving in, churning and swelling across the sky. A cold front was moving through. The weatherman was forecasting thunderstorms. An ominous darkness fell over the afternoon. Scully looked out into the woods. The shadows deepened until the forest floor was nearly in darkness. Scully shivered despite the heat. She would hate to be eleven, and alone in the woods, when this storm broke.

But just as the explosion of thunder drew Mulder from his room, just as the first heavy drops of rain tore from the clouds, a siren wailed. A police car sped around the corner and up the driveway. With great formality, a uniformed officer crossed to the passenger door and opened it. Sarah stepped out. She was immediately swallowed up into the arms of her grandparents.

The thick, heavy feeling was gone. Scully woke to the breath of cool, washed air falling through the window. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and opened the door of her hotel room. She started to cross to Mulder's room, but thought better of it. It was only six-thirty. Let him sleep.

Nathan Hanson stood in the yard, under the maple tree. He must have waited all night to come. Scully paused, then walked over to him. The morning light filtered gold through the leaves as she felt her feet grow wet with rain and dew.

"Hi," Nathan said, shyly. "Is Sarah all right?"

"Yes," Scully said. "I examined her last night - I'm a doctor, you know. I couldn't find anything wrong with her. She didn't seem to remember anything, and she wasn't tired. I don't know if she was able to get to sleep at all last night."

Nathan nodded.

"Would you like some breakfast?" Scully asked. "I'll buy."

The boy shifted uncomfortably, awkwardly, but when Scully turned to head for the coffee shop, he followed. They bought muffins and orange juice and took them out to the front porch. From the small window speaker came the sound of piano music, shimmering and rolling through the air like a gathering storm. Sarah was still awake.

"What will happen now?" Nathan asked.

"There will be biologists coming," Scully said, "To study the woods. They'll seal the forest off - barbed wire, signs, probably even guards - at least until they understand what's happening there. Mulder's already been in touch with them."

The boy nodded his understanding and gazed steadily at Scully, his eyes still questioning.

"But what about us?" he asked, "What will happen to me and Sarah?"

Scully shook her head slightly.

"Oh, they may question you," she began, "But they won't..."

The boy's eyes shifted away and Scully realized what he was asking.

"I don't know, Nathan," she said gently. "I wish I could tell you. But this has never happened before. Your talents...your intelligence... I just don't know."

"I used to think," he said, "That there was something wrong with me - because I would say things, and even the teachers wouldn't understand me. I used to think they all had the secret - that they all knew something I didn't know."

Scully watched as the boy's expression shifted away, to some point inside himself. She thought about his painting of the starry night. She wondered if he ever weighed the painting against its cost in aloneness... if he ever wished he had been given a choice.

"Sarah has quite a gift for music," she said finally. "It's hard to believe that there are only two hands playing all those notes."

Nathan looked up at her, surprised.

"That's not just Sarah," he said.

They moved from the porch to the door of the lobby. Scully peered through the glass, shading her eyes from the morning sun.

There on the piano stool, cocooned in headphones, sat Sarah. And Mulder. The girl's fingers moved swiftly and confidently over the bass keys. Her eyes were closed, and her shoulders swayed in near-circles, moving to the deep, heavy rhythms she created. Scully could hear the notes rumbling and thundering through the cool air.

Mulder's eyes were closed, too. And his fingers moved tentatively over the the right-hand keys. His notes trilled over Sarah's with a jangling, cascading melody. Not practiced - rough, unpolished. Scully listened fiercely, closed her eyes to soak in the music. She smiled slightly.

She should have understood. She knew his mind - the keenness of it, the depth. But she only knew what he could show her. All those years ago, after the choice had been taken from him, he had invented himself. He had narrowed the focus of this thoughts - for his family's sake, for Samantha's. How old had he been? Twelve? Thirteen?

But before that, he had been eleven. He had stood where Sarah stood now, and Nathan. His mind had whirled with new thoughts, new ideas. He had watched his ideas falter as they collided against the minds of others. He had let himself become separate. And somewhere, sometime, he had sat like this, blind on a piano stool, and felt music falling from his fingers.

She should have understood. He had tried to tell her.

"Samantha didn't play the piano. She couldn't do trigonometry."

No, not Samantha. Samantha was only a backdrop to the things Mulder saw in Sarah, the things she let him remember.

Nathan moved to open the door to the lobby. Scully clasped his hand to stop him.

"Not yet," she whispered.

They stood there for a long while, breathing on the windowpane. They let the music wash over them. They made no sound.

 

 

End.


End file.
